What is a brass monkey?
The phrase “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” is sometimes used by English speakers. What a brass monkey is in this phrase is the subject of much discussion. (The phrase is found in most English-speaking countries, and is sometimes abbreviated to “brass monkey weather”.) Meaning According to Snopes, it is simply unknown. According to Michael Quinion, it is very likely a figurine or statue of a monkey made of brass, “something solid and inert that can only be affected by extremes”. The “brass monkey” is the nickname of the house flag of the Cunard Line, a lion or rampant on a field gules holding a globe, but any connection with the phrase is uncertain. This does look very slightly like a monkey holding a ball, but as this flag was only adopted in 1878 the nickname could derive from the phrase rather than vice versa. In the propagandist early Radio Show “I was a Communist for the FBI” “A Brass Monkey” was a person with a monkey on their back. In the episode on Wednesday
